News tagged with chemical bond

A chemical bond discovered by Vanderbilt University scientists that is essential for animal life and which hastened the "dawn of the animal kingdom" could lead to new therapies for cancer and other diseases.

A computational model developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is the first to accurately simulate the complex twists of a short sequence of RNA as it folds into a critical hairpin structure known as a ...

An analysis of enzymes that load amino acids onto transfer RNAs—an operation at the heart of protein translation—offers new insights into the evolutionary origins of the modern genetic code, researchers report. Their ...

(Phys.org) —A study by forensic scientists at the University of Kent has established a new way of identifying which brand of lipstick someone was wearing at a crime scene without removing the evidence from its bag, thereby ...

Basic chemistry tells us that a bond between atoms can form if it is energetically more favorable for the atoms to stick together than staying apart. This fundamentally requires an attractive force between the atoms. However, ...

Scientists of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and collaborators have now combined the spectroscopic method "RIXS" with so-called ab initio theory in order to describe these processes in detail for a model organometallic catalyst ...

An unlikely material, cubic boron arsenide, could deliver an extraordinarily high thermal conductivity – on par with the industry standard set by costly diamond – researchers report in the current issue of the journal ...

Chemical bond

A chemical bond is the physical process responsible for the attractive interactions between atoms and molecules, and that which confers stability to diatomic and polyatomic chemical compounds. The explanation of the attractive forces is a complex area that is described by the laws of quantum electrodynamics. In practice, however, chemists usually rely on quantum theory or qualitative descriptions that are less rigorous but more easily explained to describe chemical bonding. In general, strong chemical bonding is associated with the sharing or transfer of electrons between the participating atoms. Molecules, crystals, and diatomic gases—indeed most of the physical environment around us—are held together by chemical bonds, which dictate the structure of matter.

Bonds vary widely in their strength which is associated both with the energy required to break them, and the forces they exert on the atoms they hold together. Generally covalent and ionic bonds are often described as "strong", whereas hydrogen bonds and van der Waals' bonds are generally considered to be "weak," although there exist overlaps in strength within these bond classes.

Since opposite charges attract via a basic electromagnetic force, the negatively-charged electrons orbiting the nucleus and the positively-charged protons in the nucleus attract each other. Also, an electron positioned between two nuclei will be attracted to both of them. Thus, the most stable configuration of nuclei and electrons is one in which the electrons spend more time between nuclei, than anywhere else in space. These electrons cause the nuclei to be attracted to each other. However, this assembly cannot collapse to a size dictated by the volumes of these individual particles. Due to the matter wave nature of electrons and their relatively smaller mass, they occupy a very much larger amount of volume compared with the nuclei, and this volume occupied by the electrons keeps the atomic nuclei relatively far apart, as compared with the size of the nuclei themselves.

In the simplest view of a so-called covalent bond, one or more electrons (often a pair of electrons) are drawn into the space between the two atomic nuclei. Here the negatively charged electrons are attracted to the positive charges of both nuclei, instead of just their own. This overcomes the repulsion between the two positively charged nuclei of the two atoms, and so this overwhelming attraction holds the two nuclei in a relatively fixed configuration of equilibrium, even though they will still vibrate at equilibrium position. In summary, covalent bonding involves sharing of electrons in which the positively charged nuclei of two or more atoms simultaneously attract the negatively charged electrons that are being shared. In a polar covalent bond, one or more electrons are unequally shared between two nuclei.

In a simplified view of an ionic bond, the bonding electron is not shared at all, but transferred. In this type of bond, the outer atomic orbital of one atom has a vacancy which allows addition of one or more electrons. These newly added electrons potentially occupy a lower energy-state (effectively closer to more nuclear charge) than they experience in a different atom. Thus, one nucleus offers a more tightly-bound position to an electron than does another nucleus, with the result that one atom may transfer an electron to the other. This transfer causes one atom to assume a net positive charge, and the other to assume a net negative charge. The bond then results from electrostatic attraction between atoms, and the atoms become positive or negatively charged ions.

All bonds can be explained by quantum theory, but, in practice, simplification rules allow chemists to predict the strength, directionality, and polarity of bonds. The octet rule and VSEPR theory are two examples. More sophisticated theories are valence bond theory which includes orbital hybridization and resonance, and the linear combination of atomic orbitals molecular orbital method which includes ligand field theory. Electrostatics are used to describe bond polarities and the effects they have on chemical substances.